Hirshberg: Annualised Call of Duty Fulfils "People's Appetite"

Activision's Eric Hirshberg has defended the annual carousel of Call of Duty releases, saying that it's what the people want.

"The cadence of the releases seems to have found a nice equilibrium with people's appetite," he told Eurogamer at Gamescom last week.

"There's demand and excitement each and every time out. Then people are playing throughout the year. We have our biggest community of players today. Right now there are more people playing Call of Duty today than ever, which is remarkable for a franchise that's been around as long as Call of Duty has. But, we don't take anything for granted."

Of course, one of the reasons Activisin are able to produce a COD game on a yearly basis is that they have rotating development studios -- Infinity Ward, Treayarch, and Sledgehammer -- to esure that each game has at least an 18-month dev cycle.

"Having alternating studios is one of the secrets to the franchise's success," Hirshberg continued "You have different creative people who are strong willed and have minds of their own. Everyone gets what makes a great Call of Duty game. Treyarch and IW are the masters, and have built this thing. So, there's a lot of common DNA from year to year.

"But then people come in and want to top each other. There's some healthy competition. There's a desire within the creative team to not do the same thing and not be stagnant, the same way there is in the player community.